I learned the hard way this spring and summer that good soil really does matter. A lot. Our vegetable garden harvest was not so great at all this year. We got a few tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, some herbs, and that’s about it. The peppers and eggplant didn’t make it, the tomato plants were pretty sad looking, and I discovered that lettuce and spinach get scorched quickly in the summer heat.

The problem was the soil. I filled our garden boxes more than halfway full of leaves and covered it with about 6 inches of top soil and a thin layer of compost. I unwisely reasoned that I would save money and that the leaves would magically decompose in a matter of a few weeks. Wrong! Our poor little plants had nothing to sink their roots into.

This fall, we did things differently around here. I attended a free “Improving your Soil” workshop at our local library (which was sadly not so helpful), purchased a huge compost bin from the city, and discovered the goldmine of all garden materials. I ended up purchasing the Lyngso Vegetable Blend which is a blend top soil, diestel compost, and redwood amendment. It is awesome.

This time, our leaves had decomposed into the dirt and that formed the first half of the bed. We put a thick layer of the vegetable blend on top. We are looking forward to loads of lacinato kale, ruby red chard, heirloom broccoli, and panther cauliflower (a bright green variety) coming our way soon!